Teams from the Policy Lab and Data and Information Policy underwent an immersive four-week training program in November to build new capability in policy development, with a human-centred design focus to problem solving. They were joined by other multi-disciplinary teams from the Data Analytics Centre, Office of Environment and Heritage and the NSW Parliamentary Counsel's Office who contributed to the exploration of two concurrent policy sprints: Legislation as Code and Data Policy.
Led by business design agency, Business Models Inc, the teams were taught contemporary and innovative policy development techniques to then simultaneously apply to these policy sprints. The typical program for the week included two days of intensive training followed by three days of applying new tools and skills in the respective policy sprints.
In the first week, we had a crash course in human-centred design and an introduction to the two policy projects of Legislation as Code and Data Policy. We split into two teams and examined our policy intent for our respective project by describing what success would look like. This was a great group-think exercise. To put it into context, we then mapped out the key drivers and constraints we thought would affect the policy in the future. The next step was to really understand our users so we went on a customer safari (stakeholder analysis). This helped us to identify the different types of users and map out their different personas. This allowed us to step into their shoes and examine our policy intent from their perspective, as well as understand the pains and gains that our segmented user would go through to get their job done. Through designing with the user in mind, we were able to identify insights about the users that we didn't know were there -all before meeting them. We then developed and agreed on a set of open-ended questions to ask users about the relevant policy sprint. The teams then interviewed many stakeholders and heard firsthand the experiences of existing users, which was highly inspiring as a deep dive into the facts and realities. We were really surprised at the take-up rate of interviews as this demonstrated that there were issues that users wanted to speak about. We also received lots of compliments on how refreshing it was for government to openly listen.
After a week of intensive user research, the teams had collected a large number of notes and anecdotal quotes. These were summarised and key learnings from each interview were captured and put onto post-it notes on several walls in the 'war room'. We then looked for significant departments and themes, grouping them into categories. Themes started to emerge. To broaden our approach and enable the next step of ideation in a more open manner, the teams formed brief insight statements by visiting each theme through a 'How might we?' process. This sometimes called for further research and suggestions, but also led to generating a multitude of potential solutions. To generate even more ideas, we went through an extensive brainstorming exercise to think outside of the box to legitimise the 'How might we?' questions. The teams then had to shortlist the best eight ideas. The next day we elected the best ideas that could add major value to our project, and decided on what to prototype as the most innovative and likely to succeed. The most important factor was to design a prototype that would be easy to test with our users and stakeholders, focusing on the user experience. The teams used various ways – sketches, post-its, diagrams etc, to create a storyboard for each prototype to evolve. Because we could see the story of how each prototype began, evolved and ended, we could see how it helped answer the question/problem identified by the teams in the previous process. One of the most valuable aspects in developing an idea was getting feedback. Throughout the week the teams presented their 'in-development' prototypes to users to test and gain feedback for the validation phase.
By week three we were starting to embrace uncertainty as we familiarised ourselves with using new tools and new ways of working. What differentiates a good idea from a great one is the ability to validate whether the idea is truly executable and will make a difference. The insights gained from users after testing the prototype really helped define the dimensions of the prototype, from implementation to effectiveness. There were several successes (not bad after three weeks) but some ideas had to be let go, but that was OK because policy design is an iterative process! Not only did we learn a lot from user testing but sometimes discovered new insights meant that we had to go back and build on existing ideas or head in a different direction entirely. We gathered our learnings and revisited the policy intent to see whether the intent had changed. This was helpful to crystallise what we now saw as the key themes of policy success as we continued the journey. We then looked at how we might scale the promising policy prototypes with an adaption of the popular Business Model Canvas. This helped us to keep the connection to the fundamentals of design by assessing whether the policy was desirable for stakeholders, feasible for delivering and viable? We then asked when would the policy be ready and could it be communicated to stakeholders and could a decision on scale be made? Like NASA's Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and Steve Blank's Investment Readiness Level (IRL), we were provided with the Policy Readiness Level (PRL) to understand the journey of policy creation to scale.
In the last week, we focused on recapping on the process, the tools and the art of storytelling. So, what makes a good story? To be meaningful, your story should change your audience in some way and that should be the goal. The teams developed story telling canvasses and learnt about some of the hacks of good story telling, such and dividing the story into three parts, a beginning, middle and end, and creating those 'a-ha' moments. They then presented their story about the policy developed to the other team to gain approval, feedback and insights. This was a rich and satisfying experience at the culmination of four weeks hard work that rewarded both teams and also the external participants from other agencies that joined us for parts of this journey. It sewed up all that was learnt and gave me my big 'a-ha' moment: that policy development can effectively be done differently. It can be done more innovatively and efficiently and it can be more meaningful in addressing the needs of all users. There is still a place for the conventional policy development lifecycle, however the use of these more innovative policy development techniques with human-centred design really help to underpin the needs of all users, and not just the ones that write a submission to a green or white paper.
None of this could have been done without the willingness and openness of our users and stakeholders the two teams spoke to (too many to list but you know who you are) together with the support of our executive in this journey. Thank you! In the upcoming blogs, the two policy sprints will share their findings and outcomes from this innovative policy development process.